Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-08-25
THE NORTHWEST
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
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THE FATE OF THE INDIAN TRIBES.
"At one time" said Waubune, chief
of the Muncie or Wolf tribe, "the red
men hourished and found happiness in
their own homes. In the time of my
own YOUTH" said Waubune, (nOw an
old man in addressing an English audi
enee in London and in English Ian
guagel-'in the time ofmy own youth,
/ listened to stories told by my mother
and other aged females, of the prosperity
of our tribes IN olden times, before the
white man came, when they dwelt on
the banks ofLake Ontario. The red men
were as numerous then as trees of the
forest, and their warriors straight and
erect like those trees. There was war
fare amongst them but no degradation.
Now it is all degradation. Drunkenness
and starvation, and want, and squalor,
and misery, are everywhere. Long life
was common then amongst our race.
1t is rare now. There was no such
thing as want then either for man or
the animals of the forest. God made
everything beautiful. There are still
beautiful lakes, beautiful forests, hills,
and mountains. But the plenty is
gone. The white man has changed
everything. The wild animals are
scarce. The fish were driven by steam
ers. The white man has given the red
man no civilization, no pure religion,
but spirituous liquors intead; and want,
squaler, degradation, and drunkenness
were the result. : q 4. 49,. t-t
Ever onwards towards the setting
sun drifts the perpetual migration. ''It
isa mournful task to trace through the
long list of extinct tribes, the history of
this migration" says Captain Butler, in
his "Great Lone Land" Turning over
the leaves of books belonging to the old
colonial time of which Longfellow
speaks, we find strange names of Indian
tribes, now utterly unknown-Mo-
hawks, Oneidas; Tuscaroras, and others.
"They are gone, and scarcely trace
remains of them. Others have left in
lake and mountain-top the record of
their name only. Erie and Ottawa,
Seneca and Cayuga, tell of forgotten
nations, which a century ago were great
and powerful. Ofyore, it was the pion-
Ger ofFrance, England, and Spain, that
the red man had to contend against
but now the whole white world
appears to be leagued in bitter strife
against the Indian. The American and
Canadian are only names that hide be-
meath them the greed ofunited Europe!
Terrible deeds have been brought
out in the far northwest, terrible hart
sickening deeds of cruelty and rapac-
'ious infamy-have been, do I say?-
no; are to this day and hour, and never
perhaps more sickening than now, in
the fulfblaze of the nineteenth-
civilization! If, on the long line of the
American frontier, from the Gulf of
Mexico to the British boundary, a single
life is taken by an Indian, if even
horse or an OK be stolen from a settler,
the fact is chronicled in scores of ofjourn-
ais throughout the United States, but
the reverse Of this story we never know,
the countless deeds of perfidious rob-
berry or ruthless murder done by
white savages out in these western
wilds never find the light of day! The
poor man has no telegraph, no news
paper, no type, to tell of his suffering
and of his wrongs! My God, what a
terrible tale could | not tell of these
dark deeds done by the white savage
against the noble red manW
CHAPTER v-THE ADVENT OF THE
FRENCH.
Our western continent was first seen
by white men as early asa. A. 996, ac-
cording to the records. y A Morse navi-
gator named Julfson, sailing from Ice
land to Greenland, was caught in a
storm on the Labrador or Newfound-
land coast, and saw land several times
but effected no landing. Fourteen years
later Left Ericsson actually discovered
America, and in 1901 reached Labrador.
Continuing his explorations along the
coast as far as Massachusetts and Rhode
Island. Here the first settlement was
made by white men on our western
hemisphere, and here authentic Ameri-
can history will henceforth commence.
To this hardy crew may all honor and
prestige be awarded in the annals of
our land. They were the forerunners
of q civilization, the grandest and
mightiest in the world. They were
pioneers, centuries before Columbus
and the Cabots.
EARLIEST EXPLORERS.
Our object, however, in this volume,
is not to perpetuate the discoveries and
daring deeds of the Norsemen, Column
bus and the Cabots, Ponce de Leon and
De Soto, but to deal with later discov-
erers-for the hardy pioneers and study
adventurers who penetrated far into the
recesses of the almost unbroken forest,
and who encountered dangers and per-
ills which the settlers on the sea-board
never dreamed of-were as truly dis
coverers as the first settlers on our soil.
De Soto, who discovered the Mississippi,
was as great an explorer as Balboa
Cabot or Jacques Cartier. Champlain
and Chevalier La Sale were brave and
intrepid as Smith, Hudson, Raleigh or
any of the early explorers.
We must not, however, in treating
of the early settlement of our State, for
get the debt of gratitude we owe to the
French traders and priests who were
the first to penetrate the solitude fthe
forest, in pursuit of pelf or for the
spread of the gospel among the natives,
for such seem to have been the ruling
motives of their enterprises. The
French were more eminent as explor-
ers and adventures than as colonizers
or settlers, and as such they were the
fittest pioneers of the Far West in the
early days.
We shall have to go back over two
centuries to recount their exploits and
explorations on the virgin soil of what
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